Determining the Sex of a Child, Social Reasons and Medical Reasons

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Predetermination of the sex of a child and how it can affect us socially as well as its medical ramifications.

Beverly Hills, CA (PRWEB)August 31, 2004

Dr Jaroslav Marik from The Tyler Medical Clinic, INC writes about the predetermination of the sex of a child and how it can affect us socially as well as its medical ramifications. Significant advances in the medical industry have created new arguments for both sides.

The ability to determine the sex of the child has brought a number of significant advances, advantages and options. The predetermination of the sex of the future offspring is important for medical as well as social reasons. Dr. Marik explains the social reasons first, as they are simpler. There are situations when the husband and wife, for one or the other reason, prefer to have a child of a certain sex. Usually it is for so-called ÂbalancingÂ of the family.

That is, if they happen to have two or three girls, they might want to have a boy, or vice versa. In our seven years of experience in this area, there were only occasional couples who came to us with a request for predetermination of the sex for their first child. This balancing of the family has been criticized by a number of people with various interests. We of course have our own feeling, and that is that as long as there is no harm we will comply with the requests. The only negative aspect is the destruction of healthy embryos that happen to be of a sex that the couple does not desire. For that reason, we have a condition, and that is that healthy embryos of the ÂwrongÂ sex are donated to other infertile people to adopt.

A more important medical reason for sex selection is the prevention of certain hereditary diseases. There are a number of ÂX-linkedÂ diseases, where the genetic abnormality is tied to the X chromosome. If the child inherits this ÂdiseasedÂ chromosome, it will be either fully affected by the disease or be a carrier, and could possibly pass the disease on to their progeny. Thus, determination of the sex of the embryo is an exciting and relatively simple procedure to do, which can stop the propagation of certain diseases. What is even more exciting is the fact that pre-selection of sex can control transfer of increased risk of certain cancers, such as cancer of the prostate and cancer of the ovaries. Girls do not have a prostate; boys donÂt have ovaries. In families with a strong history of one or the other similar cancers, simply making sure that the child is of a sex which would not make it a victim of an increased risk of cancer can be very reassuring.

Dr. Marik: "The recent technology is such that these examinations of embryos are easy to do."

Dr. Marik has been practicing medicine for over 40 years and has helped thousands of couples get pregnant.

About Tyler Medical Clinic

The Tyler Medical Clinic, Inc. was founded in the early 1940Âs by Dr. Edward Tyler, who himself had experienced an infertility problem and its impact on his marriage and general happiness. Dr. Tyler was interested in fertility - control of it (he was one of the pioneers in the research of oral contraceptives) and lack of fertility. He was a well-renowned and respected specialist in both of these fields. He was a member of the teaching staff of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Department of Internal Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Jaroslav Marik became a partner and later director of the Tyler Medical Clinic, Inc. and was instrumental in the development of a number of tests and procedures now used routinely in the investigation and treatment of infertility. The Tyler Clinic, Inc. in West Los Angeles was, for several decades, the only infertility center in the southwest. For years it has been the place to go for help when others failed.